one of the The great joys of camping is silent There is nothing worse than walking away from society, into the wilderness, and then hearing someone at a campsite start a loud, smelly gas generator.
Pebble, a California-based company that’s making a new travel trailer, is hoping an electric RV is just the thing to bring some calm to otherwise glitzy lives.
The pebble flow It’s a travel trailer with a big ol’ battery in the floor. It can run lights, showers, heating, and air-conditioning, and anything else you might want to use electricity for when you’re out in the woods. The battery also powers a towing assist feature, so the Flow can give itself an extra push when you tow it down the road, reducing the burden on the vehicle you’re using to tow the camper. .
Pebble first announced the Flow in 2023, but to date hasn’t revealed the full range of features it plans to put into the camper. In a timing announcement scheduled for the week of CES, Pebble says it will assemble and deliver its first campers in the first half of 2025. They’re available for pre-order now, starting at $109,000, but can go up to $135,500 if you want to qualify. Control its features with a companion mobile app.
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The Flow has the same aesthetic as many current-models E.VWith large windows and soft, curved features that aim to make it more aerodynamic. It looks like a futuristic luxury spaceship, or a really big fancy toaster, depending on how romantic you want to be about it. CEO Bingrui Yang is very romantic about it: He chose the name Pebble for the company because naturally occurring smooth stones bring people joy, and he wants the Electrified Camper to evoke that same sense of peace.
I had the opportunity to wander the cramped space of a Pebble Flow demo unit at Pebble’s headquarters in Fremont, California. It has everything you want if you’re into RV’ing. Inside is a kitchen with an induction stove, convection oven, sink, microwave and refrigerator. There is plenty of storage in the cupboards, and hidden hatches in the floor for further storage. Most windows open if you need to get some air. In the back is a queen-sized Murphy bed that retracts into the wall to create space. A dining table at the other end of the trailer can be broken down into a second bed. A bathroom and shower sit right in the middle of the floor plan. A glass wall separates it from the rest of the interior, but the person in the bathroom can press a button to electronically cool the glass if they need a private poo.
To the seasoned RV enthusiast, this all might seem like standard fare for a trailer that costs well over a hundred. Well, you’re right, but what Pebble is hoping is that its EV-like add-ons make the Flow special.
The Flow is powered by a 45-kWh lithium-ion battery built into the camper’s floor. It’s slightly smaller than the batteries built into compact EVs currently on the market, and about half the size of the auto industry’s largest EV batteries. Pebble says the battery can power internal systems for up to seven days on a full charge. A set of 1-kW solar panels built into the roof can back up part of the battery while you’re on the road, and regenerative charging kicks in while towing. It also has vehicle-to-load technology, so you can connect it to the Flow to use it as a backup power source or EV charger.
The Pebble Flow isn’t really an e-RV in the sense that it can function as a vehicle on its own. You’ll need another rig to pull it anywhere. Pebble says that while towing a hybrid or gas engine vehicle will probably get you farther, you can tow it with another EV. The 25-foot trailer weighs 6,200 pounds with all the options loaded, so it’s going to take some muscle to move it. The Pebble website shows the flow being pulled by CyberTruck. (When I was at the company’s headquarters, I saw a matte black Cybertruck in the parking lot. It belongs to Pebble’s CTO, who talked a lot about it while I was there.)
The powered towing assist feature can be toggled when the flow is in motion. While the motors provide a decent push behind a real vehicle, they’re powerful enough to roll the flow around a bit using a smartphone app, though it automatically moves at about 1 mph. That’s enough to spin it around very slowly, but nowhere near enough to get you off the block. What this allows you to do is drive the trailer into place at the campsite without having to push and drag it with your car. Just open Flow, grab your iPad, and drive it right into place like a giant, slow RC car. Engaging the tow-assist mode or driving it around the campsite will definitely reduce the trailer’s battery life for real camping activities, as you can imagine.
Pebble has a feature called Magic Hitch (it’s not really magic) that lets you use the app to hook the Flow to a trailer hitch on your towing vehicle. Simply guide it with the on-screen controls, and when the Flo is close enough, hold down a button and the lure will use its attached camera to find the perfect spot to hook. Another feature, called InstaCamp, lets you park the trailer on an uneven surface and then automatically get the camper level with the push of a button.
